D.C.-based financial planner Jacqueline Schadeck didn’t grow up with much, and when her mother finally came into some money, she lost it all within a matter of years.
Schadeck’s ancestors moved to California during the 1849 gold rush and bought property. But she said that it was sold out from under them and in the process of getting it back, her grandfather passed away.
That resulted in Schadeck’s mother inheriting more than $1 million between 2006 and 2008. With the money, she planned to take care of her family, buy a home and start a business. Then, Schadeck said her mother sought an adviser and made a series of bad financial investments based on that advice.
All the money was gone by 2010.
Losing it all and finding purpose
“I had a lot of questions. I said, ‘I don’t understand. I don’t think this is supposed to go like this. I don’t think you’re supposed to inherit a million dollars and then lose it all in a few years,'” Schadeck said.
The setback affected Schadeck greatly on a personal and financial level. But it motivated her to become a certified financial planner.
“That experience of my family having lost generational wealth inspired me to want to help others get and maintain generational wealth,” Schadeck said, adding that it’s “very important that we have trustworthy people in finance and in life that we can ask questions to and lean on and depend on for real answers.”
Building generational wealth can be a challenging process, especially for Black families. According to data from the Federal Reserve, Black households had a median wealth of about $44,890 in 2022, in contrast to white households, which had around $285,000 in median wealth.
While Schadeck’s experience is not representative of all Black families, she said her family’s financial woes were due to the lack of a trusted adviser.
“We need to have people that we can trust, that can give us genuine, objective, comprehensive advice, because I think the biggest gap in the financial advising industry in America is the fact that almost anybody can call themselves a financial adviser,” she said.
“People need to have somebody that they can trust, that is, again, objective — that can help them put all of this together so that they can build and keep wealth.”
Taking the long view
Schadeck is a founder of Golden Wealth Strategies, a company that offers comprehensive financial planning and investment management. The company has two offices, including one in Bethesda, Maryland.
Schadeck advises people to follow the five-star retirement plan, which includes discussing income, wealth management, tax efficiency, health care and estate planning.
She added that retirees should look at the resources available to them to determine if they can earn more from what they already have saved, while younger people should look to build a high-income skill set to make more money.
“Many times, the distribution phase of investing isn’t set up properly for people to be able to retire and earn as much money as possible,” Schadeck said.
She encouraged people to invest and focus on assets such as businesses, real estate and the stock market that will help your family in the long run.
“A lot of times, when we’re talking about building wealth and getting money, we hear a lot of ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes,” Schadeck said. “But if we can make a long-term plan, and we can follow that investment strategy, that’s going to help us get to building generational wealth.”
Schadeck also hosts a new TV show on PBS called “My Money Mentors.” The show is about making financial literacy simple and fun to learn for young adults.
“If we can make understanding finance a little bit simpler, we can get more of those financial recommendations implemented and then we can have more success collectively as a people,” Schadeck said.
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